Finland did not commence any new investigations or cases in the period 2014-2017. All five prosecutions for foreign bribery previously reported resulted in acquittals either in the District Court or on appeal.

The sole conviction obtained in one of these cases was on charges of false accounting.

TRANSPARENCY OF ENFORCEMENT DATA

Finnish authorities do not publish statistics on foreign bribery investigations, cases commenced or cases concluded. The police, the Ministry of Justice, the prosecutor and the Statistical Centre all publish various statistics about crimes and investigations, but these are mostly general, and extracting relevant information is time-consuming and difficult. All court decisions are public, unless specifically declared partially or totally confidential – for example, to protect trade secrets.

Apart from that, the conclusions of the court and the relevant details of the crime are always reported publicly. The details of all cases relating to foreign bribery are public and copies of all documents can be obtained from the court.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS

The government has established a task force from several ministries and government agencies in order to combat economic crime and the grey economy.

In 2016, Finland issued a National Strategy and Action Plan for Tackling the Shadow Economy and Economic Crime. While foreign bribery is not specifically mentioned, the plan does include a focus on better detecting and enforcing corruption offences. A bill extending corporate criminal liability to include aggravated accounting offences entered into force at the beginning of 2018.

INADEQUACIES IN LEGAL FRAMEWORK

Finland continues to lack clear, comprehensive whistleblower protection legislation. Provisions are fragmented across different regulatory instruments, and while failure to report a serious offence is punishable under the Criminal Code, the list of offences covered does not include corruption. In its Phase 4 Report in March 2017, the OECD WGB welcomed the introduction of Finland’s new plea bargaining regime, but raised concerns that it is not available to legal persons and that there are few incentives for individuals to enter into a plea bargain given the current extremely low likelihood of conviction in the country.

INADEQUACIES IN ENFORCEMENT SYSTEM

The OECD WGB in its Phase 4 Report raised “serious concerns” regarding the 100 per cent acquittal rate for foreign bribery in Finland to date, due – among other court practices – to the Finnish courts’ interpretation of the foreign bribery offence and the extremely high evidentiary threshold applied. The WGB was also concerned about limited awareness of the foreign bribery offence within the judiciary, the absence of regular training for judges and the lack of specialisation of courts and judges.

Another key issue is the lack of specialised prosecutors or law enforcement officials or any kind of anti-corruption body. As a result, there is no funding allocated in the budget specifically for the fight against corruption, apart from one individual at the National Bureau of Investigation and 1.5 in the Ministry of Justice. There is also a lack of adequate training and resources for specialised police officers and prosecutors. The WGB expressed concern about the Prosecution Service’s stretched resources.

INADEQUACIES IN MUTUAL LEGAL ASSISTANCE

Gathering evidence from countries outside the European Union is extremely difficult. There is insufficient international coordination between the police forces in various countries. Nevertheless, according to the OECD WGB, Finland has been active in seeking mutual legal assistance in its foreign bribery cases, and has used joint investigation teams within the EU with assistance from Eurojust in two of its foreign bribery cases.

Finland’s Prosecutor’s Memorandum on Foreign Bribery expressly encourages the establishment of a joint investigation team in foreign bribery cases.

- Provide training to law enforcement officials and the judiciary on the foreign bribery offence and its application, and consider assigning foreign bribery cases to courts or judges with specialised skills and experience.